Whilst house refuse is one of the common hazards to harm sustainable development of the social economy, it is also the only potential resource with considerable growth. How to dispose the urban house refuse which pollutes earth, water and air and is detrimental to both environment quality and human health, and how to utilize the recyclable and revivable part of the refuse in an effective and efficient way to achieve reduction, decontamination and resource utilization of house refuse are major issues of environmental protection around the world. The disposal of house refuse is more and more important for the sake of human beings' living and ecological environment. With the rapid development of social economies and the improvement of people's living standards, substantial changes are noticed in both quality and quantity of house refuse in recent years. House refuse used to come from food and other organic wastes in the past whereas paper-made and indecomposable plastic products are raising their share in the composition of modern house refuse at present.
Currently, the main disposal methods of house refuse are landfills, incineration and recycling. Landfill is highly demanding for land to bury the crushed wastes. As the plastic wastes, which are decomposed difficultly, occupy a large proportion of house refuse, the lands for landfill tend to lose the agricultural productivity. Incineration of waste material can produce heat, which can be used to generate electric power. However, the remains of combustion such as incinerator bottom ash, flue gases and particulates must be further processed to prevent secondary pollution. Recycling is a comparative ideal method for waste treatment as it processes used materials into new products and energy. The marsh gas and the fertilizer produced from recycling of house refuse are as cases in point. Nevertheless, residual wastes cannot be eliminated through recycling and therefore, the secondary pollution is unavoidable, definitely harming environment quality and human health in the long run.